Thane, May 21: A government primary healthcare unit was engulfed in flames after the fire broke out in a civic school in Mumbai's Thane district. The healthcare unit was situated on the ground floor of the civic floor. According to reports, the fire broke out on Monday morning. But thanks to summer vacation holidays, no casualties were reported as both the school and dispensary were shut.

The place of incident or spot belongs to Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) school situated in Gandhi Nagar, located on Pokhran Road number 2. The municipal school is a three-storeyed building.

Santosh Kadam of the Regional Disaster Management Cell (RDMC) was quoted as saying by a major English daily that the fire had started around 6.30am. He said that it was a major fire and the dispensary has been totally gutted due to it.

Initially, after the fire department struggled to douse the fire, the Regional Disaster Management Cell (RDMC) reached the spot and helped fire department in fighting the fire. Santosh Kadam said that he wasn't aware if there were any fire safety measures in the building.

The chief fire officer of Thane, Shashikant Kale said that they (his team) left for the site as soon as they got the information that a fire had broken out in the building. He also said that narrow lanes obstructed the march of the fire vehicles which could not reach the spot due to narrow passages. Hence, initially light portable pumps were used as small vehicles reached the spot after some struggle.

Only recently, a proposal to install fire safety and firefighting mechanism inside Thane Municipal Corporation Schools was put forth before the government.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 21, 2018 04:14 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).